The new Amendment will harm the women working in the formal sector more than those in the informal sector.
There was a recent uproar about the new amendments were made to the Maternity Benefit Act of 1961, which extended the paid maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks. Although the move sounds positive at first glance, it holds negative repercussions for the women in the workforce.
One of the most obvious criticisms for the Act is that it would make it costly for the employer to hire women whom they would now have to give a paid leave for 28 weeks. Team Lease did a study titled “The Impact of Maternity Benefits on Business and Employment” which stated that 11 lakh to 18 lakh women will face difficulty in finding jobs in the Small and Medium Scale Industries.
The second and the less discussed repercussion is that the amendment would impact women employed in the formal sector more than ones employed in the informal sector. There are two broad reasons. First, the formal sector is scrutinised more than the informal sector. Second, women in the formal sector are paid higher than in the informal sector. This makes the maternity leave a more expensive affair for the formal institutions.
To grasp the magnitude of the problem, we need to start with some basic facts:
- Number of women working in the informal sector in India (2018): 90%
- Gender pay gap in India (2017): 20%
- The difference between the male and the female employment ratio (2017): 79% – 27% = 52%
As women in the informal sector are already cheap labour and the regulatory oversight is limited, the chances are higher than the employment rate for women in the informal sector would remain the same. Meanwhile in the formal sector, where even after the wage gap, providing a 26 week paid leave would be an expensive affair for the firm. With the formal contracts in place, the higher regulatory oversight also ensures that the employer would rather hire a male employee than overlook the new amendment. The final outcome of this would be that we will see a decline in the female labour employed in the white collar jobs, even if the status stays the same for their informal counterparts. Leaving us with the question of who is the actual beneficiary of the Act.
Instead of increasing the cost of hiring women, one of the key solutions is to make more jobs formalised. This initiative need not be just for the women. With just 6.5 per cent of the jobs formalised, the regulatory reach of the State is several limited. Increasing the formal net would allow more people to access the safety benefits provided by the state and ensure better working conditions for more people. One of the other key impacts would, of course, be that it would help empower more women to seek their rights.